"Puir Gibbie o' Crail ended his life as I told ye, and sleeps in his hammock among the mermaids," said the boatswain, rising from the gun-carriage; "but Sandy, our messmate, hath left me a lang way astern, for he is now Sir Alexander Mathieson, Knight—the King of the Sea, and captain o' yonder gallant caravel, while I am only auld Archy the boatswain. And, see, yonder his barge is shoved off frae the Craig o' St. Nicholas, and pulled straight for the Queen Margaret."
"Which shows that the king's council maun e'en be owre, and 'tis time I were awa to the Admiral," said Jamie Gair, as through an open gun-port, the gilded boat referred to, was seen to leave the rock of St. Nicholas, with a banner waving at its stern, where three or four gentlemen, wearing rich dresses, were seated; and, with sixteen bright-bladed oars flashing in the meridian sun, it was pulled across the shining river directly towards the consort of the Yellow Frigate.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAINING THE UNICORN.
"Quaint old town of toil and traffick, quaint old town of art and song,
Mem'ries haunt thy painted gables, like the rooks that round them throng;
Mem'ries of the middle ages, when thy sovereigns rough and bold,
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old."
LONGFELLOW.
While the boatswain was spinning his incredible yarn in the forecastle of the frigate, the king, after being at mass in the chapel of St. Salvador, which stood near the palace of St. Margaret, on a rocky eminence to the north side of the High-street and Overgaitt, proceeded to the hall of this ancient residence, where the great officers of state were to assemble, and where he was to receive the ambassadors of Louis XI.
This old apartment was of great height, and was lighted by six round-headed windows; its roof was an arch of solid stone, spanned also by six sculptured ribs, that sprang from capitals, the floor was of oak, which had been split into planks by wedges, in the old Scottish fashion, roughly dressed by the axe, and secured by large-headed iron nails. The hall bore the impress of the architectural genius of the early part of the Middle Ages: the mouldings, the corbels, the flowered bosses, the ribs and mullions of the windows, were bold and massive, and the subdued light of a calm bright morning stole softly through their painted lozenges and crimson draperies. Old tapestries of green and amber colour, representing in quaint and mis-shapen figures the virtues and miracles of St. Margaret, the valour and death of her husband, clothed the walls of this sombre hall. The fair fingers of six Scottish princesses, viz., Margaret the Dauphiness of France, Elizabeth of Brittany, Jane of Huntly, Elinor of Austria, Mary of Campvere, and the Lady Annabella, all daughters of James I., had woven, in Dunfermline Tower, the stern romances which hung on tenter-hooks of steel around those ancient walls. At the lower end was a buffet, on which stood a gigantic thistle, with its stamens composed of English swordblades, and its bristles of poniards, all gathered from the victorious field of Sark; at the upper, was the large fireplace, surmounted by the royal arms, and from each of the antique crowns by which the supporters—the white unicorns—were gorged, there depended a gilded chain.
This new and most remarkable addition to the imperial arms of the kingdom was soon remarked by several of the nobles, who muttered together, as they gathered in groups, awaiting the entrance of the king.
"It is significant of the chain he would bind around us," said the Earl of Angus, with one of his dark and bitter smiles, as he thrust his furred cap of maintenance over his dark and shaggy brows.
"But 'tis a chain the sword can easily sever," added Sir James Shaw.